Combining a lifelong passion for making music with a desire to “level the playing field” for dedicated female guitarists and bass players of all ages, Tish Ciravolo, founder and president of Daisy Rock Guitars, is a Renaissance woman of the music industry and a true pioneer of the instrument manufacturing world.

Since being founded in 2000, Daisy Rock has increased in size at an astonishing rate, with unit sales in 2008 reaching nearly 25,000 guitars—that’s 25,000 girls whose lives are forever changed by picking up a Daisy Rock! In addition, Daisy Rock remains dedicated to getting guitars into the hands of girls globally, and Daisy Rock guitars and basses are now available in more than 20 countries worldwide. 2008 marked the birth of Daisy Rock’s newest line, the Debutante series. Daisy Rock now offers dual guitar lines, designed to better fit the needs of guitarists of all ages, skill levels, and most of all, personalities. The Daisy Rock line for adult and professional players features acoustic guitars, electric guitars, acoustic-electric guitars, and bass guitars in a variety of body shapes and finishes. The highlight of the line is the recently-released Rock Candy Pink Label guitar, an ultra-lightweight, ultra-stylish guitar hand-crafted in the USA by guitar guru to the stars, John Carruthers. The Debutante Series is the company’s beginner line, and offers fun, playful acoustic and electric guitars in shapes that stand out, colors that pop, and best of all, prices that won’t break the budget.

Ciravolo’s dream that “every girl who wants to play guitar is welcomed and inspired to do so” is centered on the love she has for her two daughters, nine-year-old Nicole and seven-year-old Sophia. “When the time comes, I want their experience as musicians to be different from when I was growing up, when every guitar available was designed with men in mind,” Ciravolo says. “I want them to be able to walk into a music store anywhere and be able to find something made with them in mind. Daisy Rock is not about making me rich and famous or being a hero to anyone. It’s simply an opportunity to leave a legacy for my kids and to provide females with great instruments designed with them in mind.”

In a sense, Ciravolo’s daughter Nicole is the true visionary behind Daisy Rock. When Nicole was a year and a half old, she drew a picture of a daisy, and Tish was inspired to draw a neck on it. Tish developed the design and took it to her husband, Michael Ciravolo, the president of Schecter Guitars. (Schecter had grown, under Michael’s leadership, from its original roots as a small instrument parts company in the 1970s and ’80s into a major guitar manufacturer. Early Schecter endorsees included Michael’s old friend Robert De Leo from Stone Temple Pilots, as well as artists like Prince.) “I told Michael that I wanted to create a line of guitars designed just for girls and women,” says Ciravolo, “so that’s what I did.”

Daisy Rock offers a variety of guitars that appeal to girls of any age. Younger girls are drawn to the Debutante line of guitars, with their Butterfly, Daisy, Star, and Heart shapes as well as the pallet of purples, pinks, reds and blues. Adult women are drawn to the solid construction and amazing sound quality of Daisy Rock’s light-weight guitars and their trademark “Slim & Narrow” neck designs.

Famous artists from across the musical spectrum also love their Daisy Rock guitars, including Avril Lavigne, Joan Jett (The Runaways), Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson, Louise Post (Veruca Salt), Miley Cyrus, Miranda Cosgrove, Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Kathy Valentine and Jane Wiedlin (Go-Go’s), Share Ross (Bubble and Vixen), Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles), Nina Hagen, Annie Minogue, Lisa Loeb, Wanda Jackson, Dolly Parton, Ella Hooper (Killing Heidi), Precious Finch (L7), Marla Sokoloff, Shonen Knife, The Veronica’s, and Anna Waronker. Girls, however, aren’t the only ones having fun with Daisy Rock guitars—The Cure’s Robert Smith, and The Psychedelic Furs’ Tim Butler, Chris Stein from Blondie, Sylvain Sylvain from The New York Dolls play them, too, as do Adam Levy (Norah Jones) and Paul Leary (Butthole Surfers).

Tish grew up in Merced, California, where her best friend Barbara taught her to play guitar as they attended El Capitan High School. The young Ciravolo—whose first exposure to a girl playing rock bass was Suzi Quatro as Leather Tuscadero on the television show “Happy Days”—was a quick learner and by age 16 was on tour with a band called Plateau. When Plateau ended up playing in Kansas City, she decided to stay there and enrolled in Penn Valley Community College as a journalism and business major. After receiving her degree, she relocated to Los Angeles, where she balanced a series of crazy-making day jobs (waitress at Duke’s Coffee Shop, temp positions, assistant to Jay Leno and his former manager, the late Helen Kushnick, to name a few) with amateur night performances at The Improv and Comedy Store. Intent on being a rock star during those middle 1980s, she gravitated towards what would become her primary instrument, the bass. Like her influences Simon Gallup and Tim Butler, she played with a pick. “They kicked me out of the Dick Grove Music School after five minutes,” she recalls, “because I didn’t want to play with my fingers.”

Hopping from band to band, inching ever closer but never getting to that elusive record deal, Ciravolo became the quintessential L.A. rock queen. She played in several bands over the years, including Rag Dolls, The Velvets (a female Psychedelic Furs-type outfit), They Eat Their Own (new wave pop), and eventually, her own group, Shiksa and the Sluts. Then she entered her “big hair metal phase,” hanging with the popular band Lypstik from 1988 to 1992. “We had a billboard on the side of the Roxy and everything,” she says. “We did the windmill head shaking routine when we played, which was big at the time. We were also house band at the Whisky for a time, and played in the Battle of the Bitches at FM Station.” Finding other creative outlets, Ciravolo also made two independent films (The Wake, and Birds & The Bees) and wrote sitcom with partner Karen Peterson.

“Through all those years of playing music, of great success and crushing disappointment, I always had so much fun,” Ciravolo says. “It’s physical, it’s artistic, and it’s who I am at heart. These days, I’m in this punk band called sASSafrASS, and we do covers like “Cherry Bomb” by the Runaways plus original material. I’m kind of over the whole ‘getting the record deal thing,’ and it’s more fun than I ever had before. If I got a record deal now, it would probably interfere with everything I’m doing with Daisy Rock.”

Ciravolo’s commitment to young female musicians extends into the realm of book publishing. With print music publishing giant Alfred Music Publishing, she has released three instructional titles: Girl’s Guitar Method, books 1 & 2, and Girl’s Bass Method. Each teaches easy-to-follow course material from a female perspective, with a style and design that addresses the interests of today’s young women.

Barbara’s passing from breast cancer in 2000 inspired Ciravolo to donate liberally to breast cancer organizations such as Susan G. Komen, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, weSpark, and many others. Daisy Rock also promotes breast cancer awareness through a national ad campaign in which Ann and Nancy Wilson are extensively involved.

Ciravolo is committed to numerous female-driven causes in addition to promoting breast cancer awareness. Through a scholarship program called Girls Rock (for which the Donnas are spokesgirls), Daisy Rock sponsors underprivileged girls, hooks them up with guitars, and sends them off for the experience of a lifetime at DayJams Rock & Roll Camp. Daisy Rock sponsorships include Girl Scouts, Children’s Diabetes Foundation, Reach for the Rainbow, the sixth annual VH-1 Divas special in 2003, and the 2005 national LadySixString Lyric Writing Contest. Among the company’s numerous guitar donation recipients are the Make a Wish Foundation, VH-1 Save the Music, and Los Angeles Women in Music. Additionally, the Ciravolo’s hold online auctions at Guitars4Kids.com, an organization they created from which all monies raised benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

2008 was a truly remarkable year for Daisy Rock. Following on the heels of the 2006 induction into the Museum of Making Music, and the 2007 launch of the Debutante line, Daisy Rock has empowered more girls than ever before to play guitar and enjoy music. But the innovation doesn’t stop there. This year’s newest Daisy Rock models offer an array of new features and finishes, including the Rock Candy Special Guitar, the Siren Electric Guitar, and the Butterfly Jumbo Acoustic-Electric.

“There are so many things I love about Daisy Rock Guitars and all of the endeavors we are involved in here,” Ciravolo says. “But there’s no greater feeling than reading letters from young girls who had no idea there were guitars out there for them. The wonder of discovery is so incredible, and it’s as if learning how to play our guitars helps them discover their true selves. I always wonder how different my own life in music would have been had I grown up playing a Daisy Rock guitar. It’s exciting just to know that something I have created has made such a difference.”